The coming civil war and how to prevent it

The coming civil war and how to prevent it

A civil war is brewing in the United States. If we ignore the signs, it will be too late to intervene. As Bob Dylan asked in his song “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just can’t see?”

My view of the impending catastrophe is based on personal experience. When I lived and worked abroad, I found myself on the heels of a bloody civil war, in the midst of a military coup and the mass killings that followed, and in the midst of the national liberation struggle. Although the contexts are different, I see that the United States is now on the brink of civil war.

The Second Civil War is imminent in the United States while the First Civil War is still being fought. Fights over monuments, monuments, textbooks and the names of streets and buildings are common. Memories fade, different narratives are spun, and storytelling is full of conflicting beliefs.

This nation was born in violence – the American Revolution, the enslavement and the attack on indigenous peoples. The Ku Klux Klan, Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh, Huey Long, Henry Ford and Joseph McCarthy are emblematic of a profound authoritarian streak.

Forty percent of U.S. presidents were either assassinated or were assassinated, and national heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were shot.

Warning signs of an impending civil war are palpable: inflammatory language, scaremongering, unbridled hate speech, school shootings, bomb threats, book bans and the spread of extremist groups.

Many Americans are angry about their diminished status. The fear stems from the prospect of losing gun rights and privileges due to demographic changes that are turning white Americans into a minority.

Pew Research polls indicate a significant decline in trust in government. The social structure is also weakening. Inequalities are increasing. The outsized influence of moneyed interests and lobbyists distorts electoral politics and fuels hyperpartisanship. Social media reinforces the inability to distinguish fact from fiction.

The Second Civil War in the United States corresponds to a global trend. Academic researchers report an increase in the number of civil wars worldwide in recent decades. Civil wars rage in Myanmar, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere. An extreme political direction is evident among leaders such as Orban, Modi, Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.

This climate encourages othering: minorities and immigrants are portrayed as threats. In-group factions use violence to justify their actions and bind members together. Those in power also fuel discontent by prioritizing the economy over people’s well-being when the opposite should be true.

No wonder people feel helpless and without a common frame of reference. Under these circumstances, a domineering, illiberal populist figure can take over.

Only a broad section of the American people can prevent the Second Civil War. Three steps should take priority.

First, shift reporting away from violent and sensationalized stories. Instead, focus on positive stories that provide hope.

Second: promoting political education. Our schools should be training grounds for democracy. Give students the skills to grapple with major moral dilemmas in history. Encourage them to respectfully exchange opinions and define themselves.

Finally, establish a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There are numerous precedents in other countries and in the United States. The Greensboro TRC investigated the massacre in that city in 1979 and the Maine Wabanaki-State TRC investigated child abuse related to racism and cultural violence.

A national TRC should be an independent commission unencumbered by political loyalties. It would collect evidence of carefully identified harms rather than prosecute individuals and recommend symbolic or material reparations. Even if a TRC lacks strong sanctions, it is better not to let the wounds fester.

When I lived and worked in Johannesburg in the early 1990s, South Africa was a powder keg, a civil war in the making – the next Bosnia. I remember driving down Jan Smuts Avenue as a right-wing faction of Africans in military uniforms openly recruited white men to fight against majority rule. But Mandela’s message and his living example of national reconciliation prevailed. Daily television showed grisly TRC meetings. These shows were both painful and liberating. They helped a deeply polarized society overcome its divides.

Boulder resident and Camera columnist Jim Mittelmam is an activist, author and research professor at American University. He previously worked at the United Nations and was dean of international studies at the University of Denver.